Not You: Dragon's Den
by Farla
Summary: the POV of a specific pokemon from Crystal.


Do I really need to write that I don't own pokemon? Because if I don't need to do this stupid thing, I'd really like to know.  
  
  
  
Not You â€" Dragon's Den  
  
By Farla  
  
  
  
I heard you battle with the other students of my master. You dared. You dared to come into our stronghold, to challenge the great dragon trainers to battle.  
  
And you dared to win.  
  
You walked up to my master boldly, fearlessly, arrogantly. He sighed, saying he knew Clair had sent you. Said it like she was a petulant child, like she was some little girl having a temper tantrum. But she is great, she is second only to Lance, Champion of the Elite Four and my master. And she is not far below Lance, no, not far. And yet he spoke like that to you, as if you, you were another adult he was talking to about his immature toddler.  
  
Publicly disgracing her, that's what my master was doing. Discrediting another of the Clan. Within the group such things may be said, but members of the Clan do not talk to outsiders about other Clan-member's errors and foolishness. But he spoke and he spoke to you, and he insulted Clair before you.  
  
He tested you. Oh, yes, he tested you. Clair was wise, she knew that she had failed but that you should not have gone on to the Elite, she knew that you did not care and so she demanded this test. Let it not be misunderstood. He tested you, yes, but that does not mean it matters.  
  
I heard you. Your voice did not ring with truth and sincerity, no, it trembled with barely contained glee at your deception. You guessed the answers he would want. They were obvious. He was just a stupid 'bleeding heart' as the other said. But the other's voice was hesitant, beginning to glimpse the truth. You? No, never.  
  
Only once did you fail at even that. When he asked what kind of pokemon was most important, strong, weak, or both, you blurted out strong.  
  
My master is old. He hopes, he dreams. Though it shames me to think it, he is no longer worthy to lead the Clan. He felt certain he had just misheard you. And so he asked again, a tiny bit of pleading and hope in his voice, just a tiny tiny bit but it was there, it was in his voice. You caught on, you recovered from your error and you continued to answer right.  
  
In my master's youth, he would have known you for a liar in an instant, would have cast you from the Den in an instant. In my master's youth, he would have understood that Clair brought you before him, admitting her failure, brought you before him in desperation knowing what you really were and begging him to stop you, to succeed where she had failed. In my master's youth, you would not have passed.  
  
Time is passing, both my master's and the world's. He knows the One must appear soon, or else all is lost. He saw you, and hoped that the One was you. Hoped with all his heart and so he did not listen with his ears.  
  
And so you passed, your voice ringing with deceit not with truth as Lance's did, years ago. But my master's ears are not what they once were, and my master's heart is not what it once was.  
  
He told Clair, told her like she was a child, told her to give you the badge. She would not speak out against him, shame him before you, an outsider. She tried to tell him, tell him without saying aloud he was wrong, said that even she had not passed.  
  
But my master, my master said, said before you and the Clan, said that you, said you were better then her, perfect in spirit. Said that you had passed and she had not, and she should try to be more like you. He took her words, her attempt to tell him without shaming him, took her words and twisted them around to shame her further. In my master's youth, he would have understood what Clair was doing, why she was saying her shame, that she had not passed. But my master did not understand, and told her before all the Clan that you were better. You, a lying little worm disguised as a child, you who were an outsider and who cared nothing about the Test, you who had burrowed into the Den, defeated others of the Clan without caring, my master said that you were better then her.  
  
He forced her to give you the badge, and to try to save the Clan from shame, to try to save my master from shame, she pretended it was she who was wrong, she gave you both the badge and a technical machine, and she did not say before him, before the Clan and before you, the outsider, that he was wrong. That my master was wrong.  
  
And then, then in desperation, trying to force himself to honestly believe without the slightest doubt that you were the One, he gave you me. Me! The dratini he had struggled to raise for his entire life, a dratini with extremespeed. He gave me to you.  
  
You don't care. Why do you think only Lance has passed, when any may take the test and the right answer is often clear? Because the true dragon trainers answer with honesty, knowing that the answer is wrong, until the day when they can say truly the right answer. They strive to be good people, true people, people perfect in spirit.  
  
You don't care. I can feel it from you, from the way you fought the others of the Clan. This is all a game to you. Oooh, look, I tricked the Elder of Dragon's Den. Oooh, look, I tricked him into giving me a dratini, tricked him into shaming Clair, tricked him into making her give me the Rising Badge. Look at the stupid Clan, who talk of kindness toward pokemon.  
  
No, you don't care. Not at all. You just care about the strongest pokemon, winning the battles, the battles that are just a game to you, not an honorable battle between two trainers. You don't care if your pokemon are injured unless it may cost you the match, then you will heal them. Because you walked into the Den with three of your pokemon fainted. You didn't even bother to heal them.  
  
You aren't worthy of me, you aren't worthy of the Rising Badge, you aren't worthy of my master â€" for he will always be my master, though you may have me by trickery and deceit, he will always be my master â€" you aren't worthy of the right to battle the Elite Four and the Dragon Champion Lance, your aren't worthy of the pokemon you own, and you aren't worthy of walking in this world. In our world.  
  
  
  
You know how in Crystal all those people talk about how great you are as a trainer, how you know that pokemon are your friends and you treat them with trust and love? Well, that's where this comes from. Because honestly, who here actually treats the pokemon in the game with trust and love? 


End file.
